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Thursday, February 15, 2007

As long as crime continues to the extent that it occurs in South Africa I will just have to keep writing about it.

In the last week or so, several cabinet ministers made comments about crime in this country, however, not one of them gets it! I am now really convinced that either these people are aliens from another planet*, or they simply do not get it! Perhaps they do not want to get it!

If anyone has a right to complain about the crime in this country, it would be my family. Two of my nieces had their cars hijacked at gunpoint, one niece was raped, one cousin and one uncle murdered. Our house was burgled and our car stolen. Yet, still, the government continues with its denial of out-of-control crime!Lately, the Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota entered the fray on the issue of crime. On day one of the debate on the State of the Nation address, he took DA leader Tony Leon and ACDP leader Kenneth Meshoe to task "for relying on letters from South Africans living abroad to highlight the crime problem."

Pardon me for saying so Minister Lekota, but certainly you cannot be that ignorant to think that these expats have nothing to say about crime in this country! The fact is that the majority of these expats have had it with the crime in this country and have gone looking for a better, safer life elsewhere! I am still in South Africa, and God forbid that I will pay with my life for staying here, yet I believe that I must become part of the solution to the rampant crime and immorality in this country stoked on by the very government that should be providing safety and direction in this country! As someone who has chosen to stay behind, I have just given a list of some of the crimes committed against my family! Would that suffice?

Why in the world do you, Minister Lekota, believe that the stories of expats are irrelevant to the situation of crime we face in this country? It seems to me that this ANC government loves using their selective memory and is doing so once again! If my memory serves me correct, in the apartheid years, many of the ANC comrades escaped this country. Did they have a voice concerning the injustices committed under the apartheid government? Remember, you need to be consistent now! Of course they had a voice outside of this country! Certainly, you do not believe that what they had to say was irrelevant?! Do you? Maybe the world press should not have relied on their stories since they were also expats.

The fact that people are willing to leave a country because of the crime speaks volumes! Why did they not just move elsewhere in the country? People are feeling hopeless, because this ANC government is heartless and does not care for its citizens! All this government can do is talk, talk, talk! Why in the world are they so insistent that crime is not so bad, when all it takes is half a brain to see that crime is out of control? Is something sinister going on which the government is trying to keep silent?

Lekota continued, "Why single out the voice of some wealthy individual who can afford to take the whole family, leave this country and go to Australia and highlight that in this house? The Honourable Meshoe invites into this house the comments of someone sitting in the exaggerated comfort of European cities, pointing a finger and saying how wrong the country is."

Isn't that interesting? Lekota simply has no idea how to fight crime in this country, so what does he do? He attacks those who live in comfort! As if it is not important if those in comfort have experienced crime! What does one's financial status have to do with the state of crime in this country? Crime remains crime, whether one is rich or poor! The fact is that this government cannot handle criticism. It is like a spoilt brat with an oversized ego who cannot handle rejection. On top of that, the only way this government can respond to criticism is fire salvos at the critics. No solutions!

It amazes me that every time that someone complains about crime in this country, the first thing our honourable ministers do is shoot back with questions such as, "Why are you not helping in fighting crime?" The fact is that this ANC government does NOTHING against crime and expects everybody else to do it for them! One of the main mandates of any government is to keep order and to keep its people safe. This government is failing miserably in its mandate, and as a result we should claim our tax money back!

So, BTW, if a criminal comes up to me with a handgun, what am I supposed to do as a citizen who practically does not have a right to carry a weapon? Stare the criminal onto his knees? Or, perhaps I must just wish him away? The ANC wants us to help fight crime, but they have pulled our teeth and as a result we have no bite! We cannot carry weapons, and we cannot get our communities closed up with access control added at specified entrances to our suburbs. Apparently wanting to close suburbs and adding access control is racism. Next time a white South African is shot to death we will drop the body off at the government's front door. The racism here is reversed. It is simply because we live in white suburbs (discounting the black home owners among us) that we are not allowed to close it up. THAT IS RACISM! Oh, yes! "Racism" is a non-word when it is perpetrated by a black person on a white person!

Lekota added. "When are we going to speak about the majority of black and white south Africans, farmers, who are sticking it out on their farms in the Free State, North West and Limpopo, who are working to contribute to the national effort to fight crime? Those are the people we should be speaking about and speaking to."

Well Minister Lekota, here I am. Speak about me and my family. Come speak to us! For obvious reasons I will not bet on that happening. EVER!

The fact is that it is all talk and no guts!

As an aside, yesterday, the Rigel Avenue off-ramp, which I must use everyday when coming from work, claimed another two victims, one of whom died, after armed perpetrators shot at them. This is the reality in South Africa, everyday!